This Moment In Time
by Nyruserra
Summary: Sometimes, friendship is a reason unto itself. And sometimes, it's all you have left. ReedTucker friendship, hints of ReedSato.


Written for Settiai, for the Ent:Ficathon (link in my profile), who requested: Reed/Tucker friendship, an explosion, some kind of injury. Hints of Reed/Sato.

Feedback is greatfully accepted, and lovingly cared for. Many thanks to my beta reader, Hogwartsduchess. She makes everything I write that much better.

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**This Moment In Time**

…_. Mayday! Mayday! Shuttlepod One … Enterprise. … have sustained heavy damage, and … going down. …planet not … may be too hazardous … will try to set down on the moon's surface… Ah repeat, Mayday…._

-..-

She really was beautiful, he has to admit; even if only in the privacy of his own thoughts. The voice speaking to him now is one of the most wondrous things he can ever remember hearing, and the darkness of the tiny cabin allows him to enjoy it without concern for betraying things he would most certainly rather conceal – has been concealing for years. If he closes his eyes, he can see her sitting at her consol, delicate and deceptively strong fingers poised over her communications board, as he has observed her countless times before; eyes glowing as she preformed the work she loved.

The stars spin out beyond the confines of the shuttle, and he wonders if they hear her too. He hopes they can tell him if _he's_ really hearing her.

Malcolm shakes his head. He remembers Malaysia, and the colours, and the unique rhythm of life for the people who live there. It is a dream of heat and the adventures of a little boy who never quite managed to hear the voice of the sea. His father liked to tell him that the sea was in his blood, that it would speak with him, call to him as he got older, and that gentle pull would guide him the rest of his life; a life of loyalty and duty, and of protecting something vast and beautiful.

The jungle here is deep and looming, always present in the periphery of a young boy's awareness, and sometimes the shadows seem to reach out for him, deep enough to drown in, lost forever in the siren call of adventure. Sometimes, Malcolm wakes at night, still unsettled by the primordial feeling of that place, and wonders why he can taste the sea. The sting of the beetles mixes with the humid earthy taste on the air in his memories of these moments, forever linking Stewart Reed's ocean with the young boy's vision of the swallowing jungle.

Perched awkwardly against what was once the foot of the opposite bunk, Trip listens to this confession, incredulous. For once, Malcolm doesn't mind his friends ribbing.

The shuttle shivers lightly, metal groaning softly as the tiny ship slips and settles a few inches more, wide bottom still over tea kettle in the air. Both men shift nervously, and after a moment Trip begins to talk quietly about the beauty of storm tossed waters from the beach-side home of his boyhood in Pensacola in a voice that's not quiet as strong as it was an hour ago. Soon, it will be too much for him to help Malcolm fill the pressing silence.

Neither man mentions it.

Their unending night coalesces around them, darkness that bites like frost nipping at the senses, slowly dulling everything until the sound of his own heart pounds off the shrinking walls of the pod, reducing his entire world to that irregular double beat. In his thoughts, it swells and crests over him, like waves as they are guided unendingly by the subtle feminine influence of the moon, and he nearly looses himself in the rather _comforting/menacing_ sound, full of humidity and the snap of jewel coloured beetles.

And he hears her voice, guiding him, silently reminding him of his duty.

Pulling himself back, he smiles at Trip, rueful and full of stoic bravado that fools neither a silent offer of strength that is accepted and returned wordlessly with somehow indefinable Southern grace as they watch the last of this planet's thin light slip beneath the horizon, mercifully erasing the sight of what may be their final impossible predicament. He's not really sure at this point if Trip is still aware enough to remember what they had been looking at anyway.

He speaks hesitantly, but sincerely, not allowing himself to hide behind stilted words and British reserve. The shuttle wavers like heated pavement in his minds eye, and he struggles to banish the damp heat and earthy reality of his boyhood home. Grimly, he focuses until the stark, twisted confines of the pod solidify once more, and speaks more confidently, wanting his voice to penetrate the haze, to protect his friend from his own jungle.

A diversion; sound, military thinking.

He almost snorts, depreciatingly. A Reed to the end.

Eagle Scouts prove to be everything his father has told him it will be. He learns to cope, to stand alone, and to excel. England is damp, but rarely humid, and nothing smells as it should to him, but he finds that Earl Grey tea, with its heavy floral tones, reminds him of the hibiscus flowers in his mum's small garden. Vindaloo is sold at every street corner; its familiar fragrance distorted by this new place, the unfamiliar additions of raisins and swede incongruent in this one-time favourite dish and everything around him is a maelstrom of once-familiar distortions. Here, he will get a proper education, he is assured, to live the family legacy. He feels detached, drifting and disconnected from everything around him. It is a feeling that will stay with him, the struggle to _connect/push away_, and he wonders briefly if Ruby ever ate curry.

The sound of the ocean washes through him; comes through the open windows of the Reed home, and everything he tastes is flavoured by its salty perfume.

He speaks hesitantly, of completely random things, struggling to offer what little he can to the man who has proven to be the one of the best he could ever hope to know, but he smiles against the building ache, stoic reserve pushed to the side for this moment to celebrate his dying friendship. His voice fills their enclosure with its soft cadence as he searches for things to say against the dark, drowning silence.

Maddie had hair like spun gold, he remembers, and the sun would shin off of it, the bright steely glare of early morning bleaching it almost white, a caricature of youth and vitality robed by the unrepentant light.

Dimly, he is still aware of her graceful presence as she moves quietly through the room, and a small part of him, one that is rolling his eyes at the very concept of Reed Alerts, applauds this show of tenacious duty, a reminder of what he is supposed to be protecting, but the dry rebuke is lost in a haze of aggressive arrogance that clouds his thoughts and blinds him to everything around him. Failure. But he is still aware of her, and for a moment, he smells hibiscus flowers after the rain. He sits in the mess hall, unnaturally absorbed with the vital task of naming the new security protocol, and even the tempting smells of the thick noodle dish before him, unmarred by raisins or rutabaga part of him notes, dryly, can't seem to pull him away from the lure of this encompassing prize.

When she asks why he leaves it, he is surprised to hear himself say that the untouched oden tastes strongly salty. It isn't until much later that he will think to wonder about what that mercurial voice may have been trying to communicate in that completely unguarded moment of his illness.

He thinks maybe, he's beginning to understand.

They may not survive this, but they will not speak of it, instead they fill the looming darkness with their voices; confessions and thoughts a beacon, a machete against that primordial jungle of Malcolm's childhood. This is something Malcolm learned from Stewart too, but his father never spoke of the human element of it, the mutual support of living outside the moment, cementing a friendship with unspoken respect and compassion. This is something that Malcolm has had to learn, to be open enough to accept such intimacy from anyone. Enterprise has changed a lot about Stewart Reed's son, and Malcolm sometimes wonders if that should bother him more then it does.

In the end, he decides he doesn't care.

He falls silent now, his voice rusty from offering his soul to his friend, the only thing he has left to offer in this, what is likely to be their last fateful trip on Shuttlepod One. It doesn't seem to matter, as Trip is now beyond his voice, the comforted expression of his still face lost to him in a space lit only by the few operational instrument panels left them, the cool blues contrasting sharply with Malcolm's almost contented mood.

The darkness was closing, friendly and black, his siren's voice coming out of the void to gentle him to sleep once more. And he feels that if this is dying, then it isn't half bad, surrounded by the two people who meant the most to him.

Malcolm smiled softly, losing his battle with the darkness, and wonders as he slips into unconsciousness, if Hoshi every dreamed of the sea.

His ocean has a voice after all, and his siren is calling him home.

"…_This is Enterprise calling Shuttlepod one; can you hear me?…"_


End file.
